Tip toasts esteemed rock editor, MTV pundit

Some rock stars hide their contraband in the most curious places, he discovered. But it’s not something Joe Levy cared to fully elaborate on, as he shared his less salacious — if no less amusing — tales of ten years as Rolling Stone music editor and go-to rock critic on MTV, VH1 and elsewhere. The third in Duncan/Channon’s Toast of the Tip speaker series, the evening played to an enthusiastic, sold-out crowd at the agency’s historic dive-bar-in-the-sky, the Tip.

Editor in chief of Blender since February, Levy was stopping in SF en route to the VMA’s in LA, where he was sure to see his friend, and the show’s opener, Britney Spears. In an interview with recovering rock critic Duncan, Joe allowed that his all-time fave rave is Pavement — but only after confessing that A Chorus Line was among the first three records he ever purchased. He shared insights into the collapse of the music business and the rise of a gazillion bands on the Internet — and, arguably, of a new golden age of music. And he strongly seconded the buzz for English rocker Pop Levi, whose “stereo” video is a dawning YouTube sensation. Finally, he touted a band he’d seen at South-by-Southwest, but whose name he couldn’t remember until later (get out your notebooks, obscure band afficionados): Racine.

All in all, Joe Levy brought the heat (literally — it was a record 93 in downtown) and did his part to prove that, at the Tip, as the ancient motto on the wall says: “We never give you the shaft.”